


Renaming Stars

by Awesome_Sauce432



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Flashbacks, Jemma-Centric, Maveth - Freeform, Otherwise it's not really there, Stargazing, Will and Leo are only in it a little, Will/Jemma if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-09 23:42:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6929134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awesome_Sauce432/pseuds/Awesome_Sauce432
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma Simmons had always liked looking up at the stars. She liked knowing all the constellations, the names and positions of all the stars. The night sky was a lot more interesting than it was during the day, after all. But on Maveth, the night sky is the only thing to look at, and it's completely different to what Jemma knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Renaming Stars

_"Just look up at the stars."_

_She had never been very interested in star gazing. She liked the stars, but they had always just been small dots in the sky. Her father always asked her to go stargazing, but it was only when she was bedbound by scoliosis, bored as any child could be, that she finally accepted. Just like her father had hoped, she was enchanted._

_"How did they name them all?" Jemma looked up at her father, eyes wide._

_"Well, they didn't name them all at once. A lot of them are named after Latin words." Her father chuckled, shadows playing on his face._

_"How do they keep track of which star is which? I would forget." She looked up at the stars, trying to see the difference between them all._

_"Well, they group all the stars together into constellations. Like the Big Dipper. It looks a bit like a pan, can you see it?" Jemma searched the sky, looking for a pan among the stars._

_"I don't see it! It's all just stars." Jemma's father chuckled again, a deep, amused chuckle._

_"Here. Do you see that very big, bright star there? That's the North Star. And if you follow it with your finger, in a straight line... There's the Big Dipper." Her father took Jemma's hand in his, pointing at the North Star. Together they traced the night sky. Jemma gasped in amazement when she finally located the constellation._

_They spent the night looking for as many constellations as possible. By the morning, Jemma knew how to find seven of them easily._

 ------------------

Jemma searched the sky desperately, looking for something, anything familiar. But there was nothing. The stars were in completely different arrangements to Earth. They might not even be the same stars. There was no North Star here, no Alpha Centauri. Nothing. Just unfamiliar stars in unfamiliar patterns.

Just another reminder at how her life had changed. How far from home she was. How alone she was.

Normally she would have been ecstatic. There was no light pollution, she could see millions of stars. It was beautiful. Instead it just made her angry. How dare these stars not be the ones she was familiar with? How dare the old constellations, the ones she learnt as a child not be there? They taunted her. If she looked at just one star, it looked like one of the stars back home, but if she looked at them all at once, she knew it wasn't them. Not the right patterns. Not the same constellations.

She laid down on the ground, no longer caring how matted and sandy her hair and clothes got. She looked in the sky for something, anything.

Holding up her hand, she pointed at a particular star, before slowly tracing her finger away from it, until she came to another, small group of stars, then tracing back to the big bright one.

"No more North Star... No more Big Dipper..." Her voice was hollow and cold, filled with bitter resignation.

These were no longer her stars. Not her stars, not her sky, not her planet. Not her anything. She was a stranger in a stranger land, isolated and no way home.

She stared up at the cursed sky, tracing the stars that looked so similar to the ones she knew, yet so different.

\--------------

_"And that one's Orion. You see those three stars, all in a line? That's his belt." This time Jemma found the constellation in a few seconds. She was getting better at it._

_"Why is it called Orion?" She asked, taking note of Orion's position relative to the North Star._

_"He was a huntsman in Greek mythology. Zeus placed him in the stars after he died. Do you see that bright star, above the belt? It's his shoulder, and that particular star is called Beltugese." Her father said. Jemma looked at Beltugese curiously. It was so bright. Not as bright as the North Star, which wasn't even the brightest star in the sky, but still pretty bright._

_"So if that's his shoulder, then that star must be his other shoulder... Is there any more of him?" Jemma asked, because she had learned some constellations were a bit hard to tell where they ended. Her father chuckled, shaking his head._

_"No. Go back to Beltugese, and trace upwards. That's his arm. Then if you go straight across from Beltugese, that's his other arm. See the line?" Jemma traced the constellation obediently, nodding slowly._

_"It's so pretty. I like Orion." Jemma said, nodding firmly now. Her father chuckled deeply, because she said that of just about every constellation he showed her._

_"I want to see Orion even closer. Do you think they have photos of Beltugese, and the other ones? Like, really, realllllyyyy zoomed in?" Jemma asked, looking hopefully at her father._

_"There are a few up close ones, but not as close as I am sure you would like. Perhaps someday you'll go into space, and you can see it from there."_

_"That would be so cool! I do want to go to space, it would be like flying all the time! And I could go to the moon!"_

_"I'm sure you will one day sweetie. But it takes a lot of work to be an astronaut. And I don't know if your mother would be able to handle you being so far away." Her father laughed, reaching over and hugging Jemma close. Being a typical child, she pushed his arm away, giggling._

_"Daaad." She said, but her smile was wide and she didn't look nor sound very annoyed at all._

_"Don't worry, I'll be here to calm her down, no matter where you go. But if you ever do go to space, you take a nice picture of Orion, and then you can show me." Her father contented himself to ruffling her hair, which she tolerated, still grinning and crossing her heart, listing off a dozen childish promises._

\---------------

It had been a month. A month. She noted bitterly that the sky was becoming more familiar now. It didn't help that the night sky was all she saw, twenty four seven. But it still wasn't her sky. Not Earth's sky and stars. Still strange and foreign and wrong.

But she began to pick out certain shapes and forms. A habit from all her time stargazing back on earth. She had found some that looked uncannily like ones back home, but with enough differences to remind her that it wasn't home. It would never be home.

Her eyes fell on the brightest star in the sky. She wondered if it was the same as the brightest star on Earth. Alpha Canis Majoris. Sirius, or the Dog Star. It was unlikely they were the same. Where she was was nowhere near Earth.

Still, she couldn't help but think of this star as Sirius. Just sheer habit. But it didn't feel right. It wasn't right. But she had nothing else to call it.

So one day as she lay down, looking up at the stars, she tried once more to find a familiar pattern.

She found a tiny line of three stars, right next to each other. Orion's belt, she thought bitterly. Only it wasn't. If she traced upwards, there was no Beltugese. If she traced downwards, there was no Rigel. Just three stars in a line. No Orion.

She stared at the line, as if it would change into something else if she stared at it hard enough. But it didn't. It stayed the same three stars in a line, so similar to the Orion she knew but so damn different.

Her eyes turned back to the big bright star in the sky. The Sirius lookalike. It was alone in the sky, with other stars seeming further away. A small halo of nothingness, emptiness. She knew it wasn't really empty. If you could zoom in far enough, there would be millions of stars in that particular direction. But this star seemed to shine alone, lighting the sky with brilliant splendour, but doing it by itself.

She thought of a different name for the star, other than Sirius-doppelgänger or Alpha Canis Majoris.

Solum. Latin for alone. She looked up at the star. Solum. Sitting alone in space, other stars keeping their distance. But managing to be the brightest star anyway.

Solum was the first star she named. But it wasn't the last.

\-------------------

_"Dad, look, I know how to find Virgo." Jemma announced one night proudly. Her father raised an eyebrow._

_"Really? I haven't shown you that one. Did you know it's your zodiac sign?" He said. Jemma nodded vigorously, grinning._

_"I looked it up! And I know how to find Virgo." She said, pointing up at the sky._

_"Alright then sweetie. Where is it?" He said. Jemma fell quiet, staring up at the sky intently. After about thirty seconds of searching, her eyes lit up, and she jabbed at one point in the sky._

_"There it is! Right there! See?" She looked over at her father, eager to see his reaction to her knowledge._

_"I see it, Jemma. That's very good spotting. Do you know where some of the other zodiac signs are?" Her father asked. Jemma's smile faltered a little, before she shook her head._

_"It's a good thing I do then." He said, bringing back his daughters smile._

\----------------

Over the course of a month, she named more than a hundred stars. She named a lot after Latin words. Solum was the first. Ego, Locus, Amicus were some others. But she named others after people she knew. An old classmate, a friend back home.

She didn't name any stars after her parents, or her friends and colleagues at S.H.I.E.L.D. It felt fake, especially when she had pictures of them on her phone. She was also fairly sure that if she did name any stars after them, she would break down crying whenever she looked at that particular star. It would be like accepting that she would never see them again, that she would have to replace them with stars.

But none of the stars could replace her life. A star wasn't enough. A million stars wouldn't be enough.

Still, with nothing to do but hope she could find enough food for tomorrow and talk to the pictures on her phone. the stars were one of the only ways to keep her mind sharp. Plotting out new constellations, finding particular stars that had named. Thinking up new names for other stars. Soon she would know this sky almost as well as she knew the one back home. She hated that thought. Wanted to stop looking at the stars, before she knew the sky like the back of her hand.

But she couldn't. She couldn't stop. Even if these stars were in completely different arrangements, looked completely different, logic told her these were still the same stars from home. After all, some of the stars could be seen billions of light years away. She didn't know where this cursed planet was in the universe, but it should still be in the same universe as Earth. Hopefully.

So she looked up at the stars. Wondered which one was really Sirius, which one was really the North Star, Alpha Centauri, Beltugese. Which ones made up the constellation of Virgo. Whether she had renamed those stars something else, or if they were lost to her forever.

The thoughts and wonders would never die, no matter how much she wished the sky would just disappear, or better yet, fade with the light of the sunrise. Even for just a moment, so she could look upwards and not see these stars. One of many constant reminders that she was not home. Not safe.

\------------------

_Jemma shrugged out of her sleeping bag, carefully slipping past her sleeping tentmates. Why did tents have to be so cramped? Why did this stupid school camping trip have to be compulsory?_

_She pulled on her shoes, gloves and beanie, and grabbed a torch before unzipping the tent as quietly as she could. Stepping into the cold, sharp air, she zipped the tent back up again, flicking the torch on._

_Navigating her way through the mesh of tent ropes, she wondered what time it was. It was the dead of night, probably very early morning. Once she cleared the group of tents, she was free to make her way to the tiny toilets on the campground. When she came back, she walked extra slowly so as to delay her getting back in the tent. It was too cramped and stuffy, and she hadn't been sleeping well up until then anyway._

_So she paused in front of the tent, ignoring the cold nip in the air._

_She hadn't wanted to go on this trip anyway. She sighed, looking upwards. The stars were shining brightly, the sky undiluted by the pollution of the city. The air was crisp and clean, and the sky was clear, far clearer than it had been at home._

_Jemma's mouth fell open slightly. It was beautiful. She found the North Star as easy as ever, and was delighted to find that she could see so many stars that had either been too dim to catch her attention before, or completely invisible._

_Maybe there was something to this whole camping in the countryside thing, she thought dimly. Barely even noticing the cold anymore, she stepped her way through the group of tents again. She looked for the spot where she could see the largest amount of stars through the trees._

_If only her father could see, she thought. Then she chuckled to herself. Her father had probably seen views even better than this. Still, it would have been nice if he had been there to share this with her. Jemma far preferred it when he was sitting next to her, sharing his knowledge while she broadened her own._

_But it was still nice alone, she thought. Not as nice, but still nice._

\----------------

Will wasn't as interested in the stars as she was. They were already far too familiar to him. He hadn't bothered naming them, finding new constellations. He admitted to her that he could barely remember the ones back on earth.

But Will didn't mind sitting next to her, as she went through all the stars she had named, why she had named them. Will wouldn't add much, except to question why she had named one star a particular name. But he would listen, and he was there, which was far more than what she had had before.

"I named that one Stella." She said, pointing. Will tilted his head curiously.

"Isn't that just 'star' in Latin?"

"I was feeling particularly apathetic that day. And I couldn't think of any other Latin words to use." She said, letting a smile play on her lips.

Will nodded slowly, not saying anything else. Jemma looked back up at the stars, the stars that had become so familiar to her. She still hated that, hated the idea of this sky and landscape ever becoming familiar to her. But it was, and she was getting used to it. She was still hellbent on getting off this damn planet, but it was at least becoming more bearable. People liked it when they shared their suffering with others, than when they were bearing it on their shoulders alone. A morbid thought, but true.

"Jemma?" Will asked, tapping her shoulder lightly. She jerked, not having realised that she had gone completely silent. Before she had Will, she had only had her phone to talk to. And the pictures of her friends were not usually so inclined to tell her when she stopped talking.

"Oh. Sorry. I was just thinking." She said, waving his hand away. Will nodded again, looking understanding. He had the same problem. More than once their conversations would start, and then just suddenly stop, both of them forgetting that there was another actual person in their vicinity, and not a hallucination or imaginary thing. They were both trying to break the habit.

"What other stars have you named, or is Stella the last one?" Will asked, even though Jemma knew he had no real interest in it. He just wanted to get the conversation going again. They had endured far too much silence.

"No, no, there's others. Like..." Her eyes drifted over the stars, tracing the ones she had already pointed out to him.

"Like Ego. That one, there. Next to that little line with three in a row." Jemma said, pointing. It was much better stargazing when there was someone to do it with, even if that someone wasn't so interested.

\-------------

_Jemma couldn't sleep. She was too nervous. How could she not be? Her first night at uni. She already stood out from the crowd, being the youngest person ever enrolled there. Other students stared at her, left her alone, mistook her as a lost child who didn't know where she was going._

_She felt so alone. She wanted to be there, she really did. But she didn't know how she was going to survive being so alone._

_She slipped out of her bed, thankful that she at least didn't shave to share a room. She had requested it, and since the university had a few spares, it was granted._

_She looked around the room. Bed, desk, wardrobe. She had already unpacked her suitcase, organised her new books on the desk. Put up photos of her parents, cousins, aunts and uncles. A few old school friends. But even so, it just didn't feel right. She would settle in, her father had said it would feel weird for the first few days. But the first few days felt like they would drag on forever._

_So Jemma crept along the length of the room, stopping in front of the window. Pulling the curtains open, she looked up at the night sky._

_She couldn't see as much as she could at home. Too much light pollution. She searched and searched the sky, trying to identify as many stars as she could. There weren't many._

_But she pulled a chair up anyway, opening the windows and staring out at the sky. Identifying what stars she could find, looking as hard as she could for those that she couldn't. The cold wind that rushed in didn't bother her, nor did the background sounds of the university. Students staying up far too late (not that she could complain), sneaking around, shouting._

_She looked back up at the stars, sighing. There may not be as many of them as usual, but she knew they were still there. Still the same stars she had always known. At least they would always be there, no matter where she went._

\-----------------

After their failed attempt at getting a message through to Earth, Jemma stopped looking at the stars. Refused to even tilt her head upwards. What was the point? She couldn't remember why she had ever begun looking at them in the first place. They were just a constant reminder of what she once had. What she would never have again.

Slowly, she accepted that she would never leave. That the sky that was now above her would always be the same. She would never see the old constellations. The old stars. Just these ones, that she had named herself.

Will tried to convince her to name more of them. Thought it would lift her spirits. There wasn't that much else they could do. But she didn't. She knew that if she did she would break down completely. The stars held too many reminders of what she had lost.

But one day, while she was outside, she tripped. A stupid mistake, brought upon by her not paying attention. But it didn't matter how it happened, because when she fell, she landed on her back, face staring up at the sky. At the stars.

For a moment, everything was still. The stars were bright as ever, shining and even sparkling a little. She could see all of them. Locus. Ego. Solum. Stella. Soon she wasn't able to see any of them because her eyes filled with tears, blurring and blocking her vision as she just lay pitifully on the ground.

She wept, crying for everything she had lost. Everyone she would never see again. It wasn't the first time she had cried. She must not have been crying quietly enough, because Will suddenly appeared, cradling her and asking her what had happened. Checked her for any injuries. She couldn't bring herself to talk to him, and the sobs wracking her body would likely have prevented him from understanding.

Eventually he just held her as she cried, hugging her tight and whispering reassurances into her ears. Even as her sobbing died, he didn't let go, quietly waiting for her.

"I saw the stars." She said coldly when her eyes were finally dry.

Will didn't say anything, though his mouth opened and closed as if he want to, but decided against it.

"All of them. I never told you what I named the brightest one, did I?" Jemma said, carefully raising a hand to point at Solum. Her traitorous eyes threatened to burst into tears again when she looked back up at the sky, but she managed to prevent it.

"No, you didn't." Will said, his words soft and warm.

"It's Solum. It was the first one I named." Will stayed quietly, allowing her to continue without interruption.

"It means alone. Because I thought I was alone. Then I met you, and I thought that maybe, we could get out. We could go home." Her words were hollow and dry. She just stared upwards, looking at Solum. The brightest star in the sky. Alone.

"But I was wrong. We're never going home, and the sooner I accept that, the better off I'll be."

"Hey. I was the one who had accepted that. Years ago. But then you showed up, and I had to think again. You always said that your friends wouldn't give up on you. That hasn't changed." Will said, hugging her tight.

Jemma was silent, blinking back tears and staring up at the sky.

So many stars... More than she would ever able to count, though she had tried once.

"Besides, even if we are stuck here forever, you won't be alone. I won't leave you." Will continued, leaning down and kissing her on the forehead. Jemma wiped away the tears in her eyes, but still didn't say anything. She didn't know what to say.

\---------------

_Her first night on the Bus, and Jemma couldn't sleep. It was a bad habit really. Nights spent awake at the Academy, at SciTech, it didn't matter. She was long used to staying awake._

_But this time, it was because she was too excited. Excited for the opportunities this would present. Travelling the world, it would incredible. She could only imagine the adventures that she would have. The things she would see, the places she would go. Too much was running through her mind for her to sleep._

_She sat up on her bed, tugging the window shade up. It was so different to looking at the sky on the ground. She felt closer to space, to the stars. She couldn't see as many through the small window, but she could see enough._

_Throughout the plane she could hear little sounds. Someone shifting around in their bunk. Someone snoring. Probably Fitz, she thought with a smile. He had been a little miffed at her for dragging him onto this 'adventure' but she was sure it would be worth it. Fitz didn't mind being cooped up in a lab or someplace all his life, and Jemma didn't mind that much either. But she wanted more._

_She wanted to reach for the stars. To find the boundaries of her knowledge and skills, and push past them. This came pretty close. She leant back on her bed, angling herself so she could still look out part of the window._

_It would be amazing. The best time of her life._

\-------------------

Jemma had been inside for five days. Three of those days she had been unconscious. The last two she had been in a medical pod, just in case of any underlying medical problems.

On the sixth day, she was allowed to move back into her room. She had nearly cried just at the news that she still had her room. That no one else had moved in. That all her clothes were still there. All her belongings.

That night she hadn't been able to sleep. Her bed felt foreign to her now. Too soft, too scratchy. The air too hot, the light too strange.

So she slipped out of bed, conscious not to wake the sleeping Fitz, who had pulled up a cot next to her bed. She slipped on her old slippers (which also felt too soft), slipping out of the room as quietly as she could.

She was amazed that she could still remember her way around the base. There were signs that things had changed. But for the most part, it looked like how she had remembered it.

She walked through the hallways, looking through any open doors and windows. Eventually, she reached the end. Moonlight streamed in from the large window. The stars shone brightly.

She found Solum-no, Sirius. The brightest star in the sky was called Sirius. She found it easily, and she stared at it. If she just glanced, it was like the one she had seen on that planet. But the longer she stared, the more differences she could see. Constellations she recognised. The Big Dipper. Taurus. Orion. Virgo. Things that hadn't existed on the planet.

She blinked away tears. She had given up hope on ever seeing these stars again. Yet here she was.

Just looking up at the stars.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So this was written in the space of approximately two days, because the idea of Jemma finding comfort/pain/feelings in the stars just wouldn't let me go. My English essay suffered for it, but I feel much better.
> 
> I considered removing Will, because I don't like the Space Boyfriend plot, and frankly canon would be better if Will didn't exist. But eventually I settled on making it canon compliant, but I kept the Will/Jemma stuff very much implied. If you squint, you can see it, but if you don't like it, then you can just pretend they're very good friends, which is how I like to see it.


End file.
